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We're getting screwed!! I'm amazed at how expensive sports, concert, theater tickets are now compared to what I remember them to be 20 years ago, but I keep paying.

Though FWIW in Colorado the supporters' tickets are the cheapest tickets. I think they're $13/game if you have a season ticket. There's just a lot fewer supporters here than in places like Seattle and Toronto. I sit in the midfield seats which face are $45, I think in a season ticket package they're $37/game. There are discount midfield seats for supporters on the other side of the stadium, but those seats get the direct sun/sun in their eyes at sunset.

You would think Spurs would find something on the overlap, but I don't recall anything on the wings.

Naughton offers zilch on the overlap and in the final third in general. Walker was too busy letting SWP run in behind him every ten minutes, I guess. Okay, Walker did get forward reasonably well but it was mostly inside. He just barely missed on his free kick, too. That was a great hit.

I really miss Modric and Van der Vaart in games like today's. Spurs just don't have a one touch passing game right now and Adebayor's form remains terrible. This would have been a good game to have Dempsey start but I imagine AVB doesn't want to destroy what's left of Adebayor's confidence. After a run and some breakfast I'm feeling pretty good again. Let's open a pack of soccer cards!

Southampton with the points in a relegation six-pointer. I only saw about half an hour of that on a very erratic stream. I also saw most of QPR vs Spurs on TSN. So that's three football matches so far this year.

Also, Liverpool and Tottenham rank low in terms of PDO, which means an improvement in terms of points-per-game is just around the corner.

I'm assuming the implication here is that some combination of LFC's and THFC's save and shooting percentage is below expectation -- is that right?

One of the metrics he uses, RSR, seems to adjust for strength of the opposition. I wonder if it also adjusts for situation/scoreline. It's something he's discussed in the past -- a team down a goal, all else being equal, is going to see more of the ball and have more shots vis-a-vis a game that's tied -- but I don't know if it's included here. Anecdotally, I think that adjustment would make Liverpool look worse in the rankings -- today's game as well as the thrashing at the hands of Villa are good examples of Liverpool piling on shots after being down a goal or two.

Interesting, CWS. If I'm reading it right, the blogger is using raw shots rather than shots on target. My playing around with the data has found shots on target to be a better predictor of goals (looking at seasons divided into odd/even weeks) than shots alone. I don't think all shots on target are equal, of course, but I think they're good bit equal-er than shots are.

I doubt anyone is adjusting for situation/scoreline, unless they are independently wealthy. As far as I can tell, within-game splits for advanced stats are not available from any sources but the full Opta database.

On the continuing subject of Liverpool, I'm really talking myself into their being a legitimately good club. (As a caveat, I should admit that I'm a three-time fantasy owner of Ricky Nolasco, so as much as I try not to oversell the utility of counter-intuitive advanced stat results, I usually talk myself into them eventually.) First, Liverpool's +7 GD is hardly much removed from those of the 4th place contenders. Second, Liverpool's struggles to convert chances into goals are actually not their biggest problem statistically - they're more prone to allowing more goals than you'd expect based on opportunities than they are prone to failing to convert opportunities. And I think we all agree that the Liverpool back line and central midfield are strong. Reina hasn't been the best, but he's not some huge liability. I think they're going to solidify the defense in the second half, and even if the attack never gets any closer to matching their underlying data, defensive improvement alone would bring them up toward the Tottenham/Everton/Arsenal/(Chelsea?) line.

Third, am I the only one who thought they looked really good with Daniel Sturridge up top? Suarez in a free agent position behind a central striker was so dangerous that Ferguson had to substitute a defender into central midfield purely to mark him. The value of Sturridge to Liverpool isn't so much that he's the greatest player ever as that he's effectively taking minutes from replacement-level youth team attackers like Sterling and Shelvey while pushing Suarez into a more natural position for him. Further, there should be knock-on effects where Suarez dropping deeper allows for much improved linkage between defense and attack.

Also, as I suffer through a total #### week in fantasy (screw your faster than expected healing, Petr Cech's groin), I'm playing around with a punt for Sturridge. Just a league average striker should rack up big numbers with all the chances Suarez creates.

I think MCoA is right on the merits of the Sturridge/Suarez partnership, but they have so little talent elsewhere on the field. None of the rest of the team would be out of place on a handful of mid-table teams.

My fourth football match of the year involved Fiorentina (the team I used to watch every weekend a couple of years ago, and have followed off and on for almost twenty years now) and Udinese. It did not end well.

Stevan Jovetic, whom I remember as a promising youngster who needed to work harder at getting past defenders, is no longer a youngster, and therefore no longer promising, and still can't get past defenders.

I'm honestly not sure I like this team as much as the 2008-10 version whose ups and downs would set the tone for my week. We'll see.

No situation adjusted analysis yet; it remains a goal of mine, but something I probably won't tackle for a couple months.

Also agree on MCoA's note about shots versus shots on target. I go a bit further than SOT alone, but they certainly represent a solid framework by themselves with a correlation of .81 this season and .87 last year. That's about a full tenth better than plain shots.

Re: Liverpool

I think they are pretty clearly a solid team and capable of challenging for 4th this season. They really had some bad breaks early, losing to United and drawing City and Everton in games that could have been wins. Statistically they have been near elite almost every game. My viewings agree with the statistical sentiments although I do feel they lapse too much defensively occasionally. Sturridge, while flawed, should be a major upgrade over players like Shelvey and Suso and allow for Sterling to be rotated and rested against specific matchups.

Of course, it all depends upon Suarez. He has been elite this season, much improved over his performance last year. If this continues, they will be a handful for any of the non-Manchester teams to deal with.

Re: I think MCoA is right on the merits of the Sturridge/Suarez partnership, but they have so little talent elsewhere on the field. None of the rest of the team would be out of place on a handful of mid-table teams.

Gerrard can still play and Sterling has skills although probably shouldn't be relied upon weekly. Lucas is solid and Agger and Johnson can defend. They aren't overflowing with skills, but they aren't atrocious either. And again, if Suarez plays like this he can make up for a lot of deficiencies elsewhere.

I haven't seen Liverpool play much, but they were terrible in the first half today. I saw it as a contest: who would be worse, Ashley Young by himself or LFC as a team.

Obviously LFC improved a lot in the second half. Part of that was Sturridge. Part was the change in formation consequent to Sturridge coming on. Part of it was Utd sitting back a bit too much. But I'm inclined to agree that the talent level isn't top of the table. Maybe it's just a case of failing to get the right line-up, but I'd be leery of betting on them going forward.

-Juve drew at Parma after losing home to Sampdoria last week, which puts the scudetto back in play a little - Lazio now only three points off the top, Napoli five, Inter seven.

-It's interesting how much Barca are dominating The League, since they seemed a little short of past Barca sides in the games I saw in the Champions League. I guess they were really short in defense for those games, and they've got most of the first-choice back line fit again.

-I'm assuming that it's a horrible cliche for someone who is only beginning to sort of follow Serie A or The League to be rooting for Atletico and Napoli, but the Madrid chase for 2nd and the re-opening of the scudetto chase have me rooting for both those sides. If only I could watch the games on tv.

-I'm assuming that it's a horrible cliche for someone who is only beginning to sort of follow Serie A or The League to be rooting for Atletico and Napoli, but the Madrid chase for 2nd and the re-opening of the scudetto chase have me rooting for both those sides. If only I could watch the games on tv.

I think all good and decent people are rooting for Napoli and Atletico. Having to choose between Juve and Lazio? Yikes!

Liverpool strike me as a bit of a bully team. Not in the sense that they are physically rough but just that when they play a team that isn't very good they play very well and when they play a good team they get a little lost out there. The announcers mentioned on the broadcast that they hadn't beaten a team in the top half this year and that makes sense to me.

It's interesting how much Barca are dominating The League, since they seemed a little short of past Barca sides in the games I saw in the Champions League.

I agree with this. I wonder if it's just a function of a lack of motivation. Winning La Liga obviously is meaningful Barca knew from day one they were getting through the group stage so I don't think there was a lot of need for them to have the motor cranked all the way up. The one game where there was any potential urgency was probably that second matchday game against Benfica which they won 2-0. Once they had those 3 points in the bag there was no real moment where they were in any danger. I think we'll have a good handle on them when they play Milan. I won't be at all surprised if they really step on Milan's collective throat and have a 2-0 lead after 30 minutes.

My lack of goodness and decency has never been in question, but I'm guess I'm adding/subtracting to it. I can't root for Napoli. And between Juve and Lazio, it's easy to root for Juve. Easy. Atletico is where it gets really hard for some reason, especially with Betis so easy to root for. As mentioned above, RM could have to experience some embarrassing European qualification round, and Betis is essential to that, very laudable, circumstance.

I doubt anyone is adjusting for situation/scoreline, unless they are independently wealthy. As far as I can tell, within-game splits for advanced stats are not available from any sources but the full Opta database.

The PDO* reference means this person is familiar with hockey metrics, and you could do for soccer the same way they do for all the hockey stats, scraping all the game logs and calculating them from the PBP. In hockey the fashion is to ignore everything when the game is tied in order to correct for the possession change, but I hate that. The hockey background might also be the source of using just shots rather than shots-on-goal, since that is a better predictor of possession and the more useful for hockey.

*Which is shooting percentage + save percentage and is supposed to trend to 1000 in hockey. I'm very surprised that it's apparently about the same in soccer.

I wish the replay had rolled through a bit. The reaction of the player can often give you some good insight. If he immediately looks to the ref then he was diving, if he hops up then it's just a slip and fall and he knows it. The brief bit we saw he was looking at the ball, not the ref which makes me think it was just an accidental tumble that the ref blew.

In all honesty, I can't tell whether Rodriguez consciously dove or just lost his balance avoiding Stevens' challenge. Since Villa only played well enough to deserve a draw when they absolutely needed to get three points at home against one of the few teams arguably inferior to them, there's a certain sense of justice to the outcome, in the sense that nobody at Aston Villa should have any complacency about anything at any point for the rest of this season.

Any of you who managed to stay awake during the QPR-Spurs match on Saturday, please help. I would have sworn Harry brought on Djibril Cisse about five minutes from time, but none of match reports say that happened. I am starting to think that the first 80-odd minutes of tedium either (a) drove me temporarily insane and I hallucinated QPR making an attacking change or (b) put me to sleep and I dreamed of QPR making an attacking change. Wha' happen?

Is there something wrong with the club? Being rich in Istanbul sounds like a pretty good life to me. Great city.

Or maybe he wants to play against a higher level of competition? On the one hand, ok, the Turkish League isn't Serie A or the Premiership, on the other hand, Galatasaray is drawn into the round of 16 in the Champions League against entirely beatable Schalke.

I would have sworn Harry brought on Djibril Cisse about five minutes from time, but none of match reports say that happened. I am starting to think that the first 80-odd minutes of tedium either (a) drove me temporarily insane and I hallucinated QPR making an attacking change or (b) put me to sleep and I dreamed of QPR making an attacking change. Wha' happen?

Sir, he did not. He warmed up and it looked like he might come on but he never did. The only memorable part of the game was Cesar's double save. That was annoyingly impressive.

Any of you who managed to stay awake during the QPR-Spurs match on Saturday, please help. I would have sworn Harry brought on Djibril Cisse about five minutes from time, but none of match reports say that happened. I am starting to think that the first 80-odd minutes of tedium either (a) drove me temporarily insane and I hallucinated QPR making an attacking change or (b) put me to sleep and I dreamed of QPR making an attacking change. Wha' happen?

I have the same memory. What I remember even more is the announcers talking about it at great length starting even before the end of the first half so maybe that's why we think he came on.

Any of you who managed to stay awake during the QPR-Spurs match on Saturday, please help. I would have sworn Harry brought on Djibril Cisse about five minutes from time, but none of match reports say that happened. I am starting to think that the first 80-odd minutes of tedium either (a) drove me temporarily insane and I hallucinated QPR making an attacking change or (b) put me to sleep and I dreamed of QPR making an attacking change. Wha' happen?

I have a clear memory of the announcers saying that Harry was bringing on Cisse, and talking about QPR adding a striker and going for it in the final minutes. I have no memory of an actual substitution happening. I watched for Cisse for a couple minutes, never saw him, then forgot about it. My guess is either the announcers got it wrong and never corrected themselves, or Harry changed his mind.

Sneijder's position is likely informed by the fact that there has been a revolt among the more religious elements of Galatasary's support because Ms Sneijder "seduced" a good Muslim boy in a recent film, and they believe that there is no place for the consort of such a Jezebel at their beloved club.

Or it may be that they've gotten extremely comfortable in Milan (which is no doubt the case).

I have a clear memory of the announcers saying that Harry was bringing on Cisse, and talking about QPR adding a striker and going for it in the final minutes. I have no memory of an actual substitution happening. I watched for Cisse for a couple minutes, never saw him, then forgot about it. My guess is either the announcers got it wrong and never corrected themselves, or Harry changed his mind.

I think this must be it. Too, having no memory of Cisse actually having a touch wasn't a red flag because of the overall pattern of play.

At my two trip to the Lane I had no desire to buy any food or drink as the action is so engrossing the time flies and you're only in the stadium for 2 hours. It just didn't occur to me to even bother with concessions.

At my two trip to the Lane I had no desire to buy any food or drink as the action is so engrossing the time flies and you're only in the stadium for 2 hours. It just didn't occur to me to even bother with concessions.

I've only ever purchased the scalding hot "cuppa" for the purpose of warming my hands at halftime. I think this may actually be the intended function of the tea sold at concessions because it certainly isn't designed for drinking.

Also, as somebody who got into soccer watching Baggio, Vialli, Del Pierro, Zidane, Davids, etc., I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Juventus. It's not like rooting for either of the Milan teams is any better ....

My choice was completely rhetorical. The answer for which club to choose between Juve, Lazio and the Milan clubs is to ask another question!

Looks like QPR are using Tony Fernandes' cash to try to hijack the Loic Remy transfer. I'm guessing QPR is one of the clubs against a Premier League FFP. Interestingly enough, the clubs in favor of a PL FFP are Man U, Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool. Well, I guess it's not that interesting since those clubs stand to gain the most from FFP.

No point worrying about Europe, when just staying in the PL is a longshot.

They want to create a version of the FFP that would be in effect within the PL in addition to UEFA's FFP. Man U, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool are skeptical UEFA will be able to enforce FFP rules so they basically want the PL to enforce their own version of it. At least, that's my understanding, and they want this to happen before the Brinks trucks of new tv money start pulling up at the club offices.

The other week I said if soccer was like American sports that players like Torres, Carroll and Snjeider would have been either cut or traded in a salary dump.

No way on Torres. He's basically worst-case Alex Rodriguez, a practically immovable salary on a player who isn't any better than league average. The only chance the Yankees have of moving ARod's salary (if they wanted to) is to play him and hope he improves to be sale-able. Rodriguez has a lot more upside to be a very good player again than Torres, given the differing aging curves of baseball and football, and Rodriguez' significantly greater and more diverse abilities. And Rodriguez is immovable now.

Vernon Wells, Carl Crawford, Gilbert Arenas, Joe Johnson ...
In football you do just get cut.

Yeah, but that's because a large portion of contracts in the NFL tend to be non guaranteed. So cutting a player actually saves a team cash. When all contracts are fully guaranteed, it only really makes sense to cut somebody if they are below replacement level, and unlikely to rebound.

Carroll went from mega buy to the bargain bin faster than most anything in American sport.

Juanma Lillo, the great mentor of Pep Guardiola, said that 4–2–3–1 gave him the best distribution of players over the pitch, which is understandable. The central three in midfield is flexible and playing with the wide men high up averts the immediate problem of 4-4-2 which is that the opposing full-backs have time and space in front of them (even distribution is of importance, of course, primarily for sides playing a game based on passing and pressing and there are other, equally effective and equally legitimate modes of play that have other priorities). But there is space there; the blanket is never quite big enough.

The problem is that if the wide men are advanced to pin in the opposing full-back, there is space between them and their own full-back. It is difficult space to exploit, being neither behind nor in front of a team but between two lines, but it is possible.

[...]

When 4–2–3–1 first emerged, it seemed a way of reintroducing dribblers into the game. With the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robben and Eden Hazard, it is easy to forget that by the mid-90s, it had become relatively rare to see a player run at an opponent and try to take him on primarily with skill as opposed to pace. The old-school winger may have been reinvented as a wide-forward more concerned with scoring than crossing, but in terms of close technical ability, often from a standing start, many of the attributes of the traditional winger have been reawakened over the past 15 years.

What has become increasingly apparent, though, is that having players with a licence to dribble from high up the pitch brings its own danger. Those wide men must also be prepared, as an absolute minimum, to track or close the opposing full-back and, ideally, they should have the awareness to drop off and pick up the opposing winger if he comes into that three-quarter space at the edge of the 4–2–3–1.

Sort of related to the above, it reminded me that in the game on sunday, Welbeck tracked back at a full sprint for probably 3/4 the length of the field when a Liverpool player got the ball with no one between him and the far end line. It was the most backchecking effort I think I've ever seen from a forward in a league game.

Robbie Keane training with Spurs to get ready for the MLS season. They wouldn't be thinking of signing him to sit on the bench while Adebayor is in Africa, would they? It would only be for a couple of games, but still. I'd think I'd prefer Obika getting the sitting on the bench in case of emergency duty.

Robbie Keane training with Spurs to get ready for the MLS season. They wouldn't be thinking of signing him to sit on the bench while Adebayor is in Africa, would they? It would only be for a couple of games, but still. I'd think I'd prefer Obika getting the sitting on the bench in case of emergency duty.

FWIW, Keane scored 3 goals in 7 games for Aston Villa last year. (One was a 3-2 win, so without that the would have been relegated.) You can do way worse than Keane for 6 weeks.

#621 At least two prominent NHL players (Wade Redden and Scotty Gomez) have been sent home by their respective teams. Salary cap rules makes it more cost effective to pay them not to play than to even simply give them away.

#621 At least two prominent NHL players (Wade Redden and Scotty Gomez) have been sent home by their respective teams. Salary cap rules makes it more cost effective to pay them not to play than to even simply give them away.

Those players are no longer prominent, they're just expensive.

They were sent away because the new CBA makes their cap hit still count if they were sent down so they are looking to unload them and don't want to risk injury. Previously teams just stashed them away in the AHL.

FWIW, Keane scored 3 goals in 7 games for Aston Villa last year. (One was a 3-2 win, so without that the would have been relegated.) You can do way worse than Keane for 6 weeks.

I don't think he'd even be needed for that long since Togo isn't expected to go far at the ACN, especially as I suspect Adebayor will be sulking through the tournament. I like Keane but I'd prefer they reward Obika for tearing things up for the youth/reserve team.

There's a little bit of gossip now that Willian is trying to force a move to Spurs.
Nothing new on Sneijder.
Everton are close to signing Etienne Capoue from Toulose.
Not much else going on. Arsenal may or may not be in or Diame and etc. etc. etc...
Vincent Kompany had his red card rescinded. I thought it was a reasonable call by the ref but they've has been very quick to rescind red cards this year. My favorite dumb rumor today is that Man City were going to sign Mats Hummels if Kompany has to sit out 3 games. Just so, so dumb.

641, I'm quite sure you know this, but Gomez and Redden would still be with their teams if the new NHL CBA hadn't provided limited cap amnesty for contract buyouts. The details of the rules here matter a lot (as to the nature of the contracts, as the NFL example noted above makes clear).

When all contracts are fully guaranteed, it only really makes sense to cut somebody if they are below replacement level, and unlikely to rebound.

I don't know how replacement level would apply to soccer as there is no minimum salary, would that be the best player willing to play for free? Otherwise, one man's* replacement player is another's** expensive bosman signing.